I wish I could say I don't believe this article but, sadly, I do. I can't begin to say how really sad and pathetic it is. It's a Chicago Tribune article, and you may have to be a registered user read on-line, so here's the text if you don't want to register.

(It's also my first try at LJ cuts, so if it's screwed up you'll just have to deal. Sorry ;D )

White flight-- in the wrong directionDumbing down of education gives way to new, sad phenomenon between racesLeonard Pitts, a syndicated columnist based in Washington: Knight Ridder/TribunePublished November 29, 2005

Perhaps you remember white flight.

That is, of course, the term for what happened in the '60s when blacks, newly liberated from legal segregation, began fanning out from the neighborhoods to which they'd once been restricted. Traumatized at the thought of living in proximity to their perceived inferiors, white people put their houses on the market at fire-sale prices and took flight.

Well, something similar is happening now in northern California. Similar in the sense of being completely different.

Where whites once ran because they felt they were superior to their new neighbors, they are apparently running now because they feel they are not quite as good.I refer you to a Nov. 19 story in the Wall Street Journal. Reporter Suein Hwang interviewed white parents who are pulling their kids out of elite public high schools, schools known for sending graduates to the nation's top colleges. They are doing this, writes Hwang, because the schools are too academically rigorous, too narrowly focused on subjects like math and science.

Too Asian.

Yes, you read right. Hwang reports that since 1995, the number of white students at Lynbrook High in San Jose has fallen by almost half. At Monta Vista High in Cupertino, white students now make up less than a third of the population.

White parents are putting their kids into private schools or moving to areas where the public schools are whiter, less Asian and less demanding. Where sports and music are also emphasized and educators value, as one parent put it, "the whole child."

One white woman told Hwang how she dissuaded a young white couple from moving to town, telling them their child might be "the only Caucasian kid in the class." Another said, "It does help to have a lower Asian population."

Which plays, of course, into the old stereotype of the hyper-competitive Asian. But the new white flight has also given rise to a new stereotype one educator calls "the white boy syndrome." It says that white kids don't have it between the ears.

The irony speaks for itself.

I have no idea why Asian kids tend to lap the field, academically speaking. I do know it has nothing to do with the simple fact of being Asian, any more than the fact of being black makes you a great basketball player. To attain proficiency in any field, it helps to want that proficiency and to belong to a culture that rewards it. We strive for the things we deem important.

I make no argument for punishing, joyless education. Sports and music are important too. On the other hand, most kids are hardly in danger of studying too hard or being insufficiently entertained.Consider the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a federal study released last month. It found that, despite some improvement, American kids remain academically underwhelming. Only 31 percent of 4th graders, for instance, were rated proficient or better in reading.

In recent years, I've taught writing at an elite public high school and three universities. And I've been appalled how often I've encountered students who simply could not put a sentence together, had no conception of basic grammar and punctuation. They tell me I'm a tough grader. "I've always gotten A's before," sniffed one girl to whom I thought I was being generous in awarding a C-plus.It occurs to me that this is the fruit of our dumbing down education in the name of "self-esteem." This is what we get for making the work easier instead of demanding the students work harder--and the parents be more involved.

So this new white flight is less a surprise than a fresh disappointment. And I've got news for those white parents:

Comments

There had been another article a week or so ago in the Trib regarding the fact that so many students have to take remedial classes once they get into colleges because there high schools are not measuring up. If I think of it when I get home, I'll try to track it down for you. Then again, I might just crash when I get home.

Don't say 'crash', I start having flashbacks to that stupid train wreck... ;)

I wonder if this is just a symptom of my prejudice against stupid people. Not uneducated ones, who may have just had poor quality education. I mean *stupid* people, who hold ignorance as a badge of honor and take no responsibility for their own thoughts. Silly cows *sigh*

Sorry about that. The stuff I'm on for this bronchitis has me coming home and going directly to bed, though. Don't really know a better word for it.

I have some interesting views, being mixed in with a lot of the younger 'kids' in one of my classes. They seem to expect handholding and teachers constantly reminding them when things are due. I'm not used to that (nor do I like it - I feel like I'm in high school).

I don't think it's a symptom, but more a frustration felt because these are the people that are going to come after us. It's hard to get people to think when they vote if they are only going to base their opinion off of what they hear their friends or family say. *baaaabaaa*

I think one of the main reasons it disturbs me - well, why *particularly* disturbs me this very second - is that I happened to catch a bit of a PBS show the other day about a couple guys who rather successfully sued a (Alabama?) law school for 'reverse discrimination', which is technically meaningless as a term anyway. But anyway, the whole point was the application of racial diversity in upper education and the possible abuse of the quota system. So I was thinking that, rather than quotas, we need some way to judge a person's critical thinking skills. Your *ability* to think isn't strictly dictated by education (or lack thereof) and can offset a host of other problems. It's also remarkably color-blind, go figure, but it's hard to look at the current crop of aptitude testing and see anything that improves the *quality* of a child's thinking. Moving your child so they aren't challenged in school doesn't look very helpful either.

I'll check out the discussion you mentioned. I'm a curious cat, after all :) I just wish I was more confident that I had all the answers - I'd be a lot happier if I knew I was *right*, darn it, and if only everyone else would admit that the world would be such a *happier* place! I'd feel a lot more justified in hitting people over the head with my brilliant plans, after all :)